401k’s are a relatively new development.

Companies that provided anything used to have pensions.

I have always heard that at that time stockholders were primarily the wealthy who understood finance.

I’ve looked but cannot find info on how how much the middle class was directly affected by the actual stock crash in ‘29.

Not that it made any difference eventually, but I have heard that the average person didn’t even realize that the economy had crashed.

Anyone know?

 

  • USMC Wife 1:07 pm on February 25, 2010

    I talked to an 87 year old woman today about this. She was a little girl at the time her family had never been rich but were affected by the stock crash. She said that she didn’t remember much because she was so young but she knew that they had very little and sometimes couldn’t eat. I think the reason people feel the rich were affected the most is because they were the ones who had to drastically change their lives.Where as with the poor and the middle they knew what it meant to struggle so they weren’t as devastated and suicidal.

  • mutantalbino 1:07 pm on February 25, 2010

    I understood that people were going crazy in the stock market and making money. You could borrow money to buy a stock and use it for collateral for the loan. Everything was great until the value of the stocks started going down.

    Sound familiar?

    I always thought it to be more sophisticated " city slickers" doing that. The country as a whole was primarily agrarian – they were worried about harvesting potatoes and had little or no cash so I doubt they were involved in the markets.